


does not suffice

by parrishes



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 23:30:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9095467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parrishes/pseuds/parrishes
Summary: this time, goodbye means goodbye.





	

karakura is full of longing, heartbroken echoes, and ichigo is no different. 

he can feel his hollowness reverberate around the skyscrapers, stretching up to a sky so blue that it pains him, _pierces_  him to look at it. 

(rukia stands before the senkaimon, renji next to her, her eyes distant and downcast. ichigo tries to speak, but renji puts his hand on her shoulder and she puts her hand on his and ichigo _chokes._ )

he tries to make a life, a new life. it’s not the one he wanted, but that isn’t up to him, not anymore. he tries to move forward as best he can, but his heart isn’t in it, isn’t there at all, and everyone - everyone from inoue to his father to the gotei, who watch over him silently - can see the bloody hole that yhwach left behind. 

(”just a minute,” she tells renji. “i’ll follow you soon,” and oh, she will be following him - ichigo can see it in renji’s dark eyes and his clenched fist but he walks away, he steps through the gate and every butterfly but one follows him.) 

the silence stretches ten years, ten long years, but all he has to do is _live._

(the sky is blue enough that when he blinks he sees red imprinted across his eyelids. rukia listens to the hinging and unhinging of his jaw, and when he speaks it all come out, all in a rush. “i’m sorry, i can’t stop it, i can’t-” he bleeds, and rukia continues staring at the dirt.)  

he tries to be happy. he does his best, but yhwach’s continued absence speaks volumes, and no one wants to think about what it means - what it would have, could have meant had things been different. 

(rukia still glances towards the ground, and ichigo believes that the second she looks at him directly yhwach will tear through the fabric of reality and kill them all and would it really be so bad? but that doesn’t happen, and the brimming tears at the corners of her eyes hit him like a punch in the gut.

“i know,” she says, “i know. i know it isn’t your fault,” and her voice is so earnest it breaks him. “you tried, and even if it isn’t what you wanted - for all of us - it is enough. you were enough, ichigo. you always have been.”

the end is approaching, their time is almost up; he can tell by the energy that seeps into her frame. he can see her movements before she makes them. it’s too soon, and their parting will always, always be too soon for ichigo. rukia takes a halting step toward him, still wishing:

“but... be done now, ichigo. be happy. that’s all.”

she’s walking toward the gate when he calls out to her and whispers, “ _we_ could have been happy. you and me.” 

rukia stops, turns her ear towards him, enough that he can see the side of her face and the edges of her hair and her small, resigned smile and says, “no... i don’t believe we could have. goodbye, ichigo.” when she crosses the gate with the last butterfly sitting on her shoulder, ichigo sits staring at the blank expanse of the dead senkaimon for hours upon hours, tear-streaked and silent.) 

he does his best to live, for everyone’s sake. for her, for himself, for their friends, for the world - but he’ll always love her and he’ll always suffer for it. living is one thing, living happily quite another - loving her, loving them all is not enough. in the end, love does not suffice, but he lives nonetheless. 

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this on tumblr for bleach because i needed to write something, anything, and i feel stalled on my current project for another fandom. so i've branched out! i hope you like it.


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